Capitalized Common Nouns Derived From Proper Nouns
Proper nouns may be used as common nouns, as members of a unique class of common nouns. For example, the corporation Toyota builds vehicles which are colloquially called Toyotas; the fact that the latter is a common noun can be seen in how it can be modified: a Toyota, my Toyota, many Toyotas. Such uses typically arise through ellipsis or metonymy: a car made by Toyota → a Toyota car → a Toyota. Similarly with nationalities and members of religions: America and Christ are proper nouns, American and Christian are not, but retain the capitalization of the proper nouns they are based on. In many languages, such derivations lose the capitalization.
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Famous quotes containing the words common, nouns, derived and/or proper:
“They sang, but had not human tunes nor words,
Though all was done in common as before;
They had changed their throats and had the throats of birds.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The sceptics assert, though absurdly, that the origin of all religious worship was derived from the utility of inanimate objects, as the sun and moon, to the support and well-being of mankind.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“There is a Restlessness springing from the consciousness of power not fully utilized, which must be present wherever there is unused power of whatever kind. This is the restlessness of the germ within the seed, struggling upward and downward towards its proper life. ... it is a striving full of pain, the cutting of tender flesh by the fetters of the captive as he struggles against their pitilessness.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)